Spiral Publishing's July Reads
Spiral Publishing's July Reads
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Spiral Publishing authors Kari Kilgore and Jason A. Adams have put together an exclusive bundle of six fiction stories set in July and summertime, and available this July at a special price! Check out the stories below, and be sure to grab your bundle of Spiral Publishing's July Reads before it disappears at the end of the month!
We're officially entering the second half of 2024, and the heat is on in the Northern Hemisphere! Our seventh monthly short story bundle full of summertime reads at a special discounted price spans a bunch of genres, even more than usual. So you'll be all set to relax and read with a cool drink by your side, or snuggled up with a warm one in the Southern Hemisphere.
Either way, we hope you'll enjoy the escapes!
Jason starts the bundle off with When the Spying’s Done, exploring what professional sneaky people do between jobs, and what interest they might have in certain coworkers. And it shows us that even among secret agents, hope springs eternal.
Kari's tale The Earworms brings you into a small, close-knit town under an unusual sort of attack. One that takes the idea of an inescapable "song of the summer" to the next level, and multiplies the madness from there.
With Writing the Past, Jason follows a ranch hand reluctantly on the run, and what happens after he wakes up on a different side of history near a Nevada town with a very interesting hidden feature.
In The Perfect Shade of Haint Blue, Kari introduces Mark Hersch, a hero from her Voices Through Time series, during one of those endless summers of the teen years. An idyllic spell of getting to know himself and his family turns a lot more interesting than he or his beloved Papaw bargain for.
Jumping far into the future and far across the galaxy with A Real Hero, but with life struggles not that different from Earth-bound teenagers, Jason takes us to the planet Xantares IV. A boy on the cusp of becoming a man must make decisions about what path to take, whether that means following one of his parents or forging his own way.
And finally, in a much darker turn on the theme of growing up and finding your way to adulthood, Kari's story In the Company of Women travels to a small town led by a decidedly sinister group of women. Coming of age might mean gaining a great deal of power, but at what cost?
Happy summer, happy reading, and don't forget to check back next month for your brand-new batch of Spiral Publishing's Monthly Reads!
When the Spying's Done by Jason A. Adams
Nothing Beats a Company Romance
Spies live exciting lives when in the field.
Like all soldiers, their downtime comes with fewer thrills.
Lena Bauer certainly thinks so.
Until she meets Major Adam Walton.
When the spying ends, will something new begin?
An excerpt from When the Spying's Done:
Major Walton had that estimable quality in their profession, Hollywood spy movies notwithstanding. He was a man who you wouldn’t remember five minutes after seeing him.
Unless he smiled at you. Smiled and laughed. Then his face lit up like sun glare off a canopy and made a girl’s knees quiver.
A pilot who’d cut his teeth in a Piper Cub from the age of thirteen, he’d gone on to fly three tours in Vietnam in F-4s before becoming one of the first A-10 instructor pilots. Somewhere in his quarters, he had a blue jacket full of brass and silver gewgaws, including the Distinguished Flying Cross with several clusters.
All before being tasked with testing what she and her fellow Company men and women brought back from behind the Iron Curtain.
The Earworms by Kari Kilgore
There's no escape.
Estonoa, Virginia. A lovely little town tucked deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Hiking and ATV trails. Kayaking along the scenic Clinch River.
A thriving community focused on the future.
Erin Evans loves her hometown, except for one thing.
The Earworms.
Will Erin find the answer before the music drives her and everyone else crazy?
An excerpt from The Earworms:
What if your whole town had to face the music?
Erin hunched her shoulders. No one else was out on the street, no vehicles moving. Just a few short weeks ago, even this early in the day people would be walking, chatting, doing a bit of shopping before the afternoon heat settled in.
The middle of the street could be the worst depending on how the songs played out that day. Sometimes all of Estonoa sounded one annoying tune, from nowhere and everywhere.
Sometimes each block was different.
More and more often, each building, sidewalk, and parking lot was infected with its own variety of musical torture. Even the hiking trail by the river and the town park had joined in the constant onslaught.
Erin gritted her teeth as chirpy Nineties pop battled campy Sixties TV. She hopped over brand new white lines on 4th Avenue, amazed at what she was willingly headed toward.
The theme from Gilligan's Island finally won out.
Writing the Past by Jason A. Adams
A Chance to Write His Own Past
Elijah Carlyle wants to escape a past written by others.
But a Pinkerton detective dogs his steps, ready to bring him in for another’s crime.
Should Lije stop running and turn himself in before the past catches up with him?
Or will fate intervene, and allow him to rewrite his own history?
An excerpt from Writing the Past:
Lije decided to skip the road, just cut across the pan. A brilliant gibbous moon lit the ground like God’s gas lamp, and for now he appreciated the ghostly solitude.
Wrens sang as he and the companion beneath him slowly made their way toward Lije’s final reckoning. A few desert mice hopped and skipped away. From the mountain at his back, a puma screamed its womanly shriek, setting the hairs on his neck to dancing.
Lije felt at peace. With the world, with the past, and most surprising of all, with himself. Whatever came next, his soul would be clean. Scrubbed and scoured by the vast desert. By miles upon leagues along his backtrail.
Or maybe his soul had already winged its way toward whichever final destination…
The Perfect Shade of Haint Blue by Kari Kilgore
Heeding the Signs
Mark Hersch enjoys a busy summer in his favorite place: with his grandparents in Hartstown, Virginia.
Working, saving for college, learning to drive. Getting to know his family and himself.
Then one job brings a shiver of warning.
Will Mark and his Papaw recognize the danger before it's too late?
A Voices Through Time Story
Also available in the collection Stepping Out of Reality: Short Spells of Appalachian Magic
An excerpt from The Perfect Shade of Haint Blue:
Learning to Heed Those Strange Warnings
Mark frowned, but a quick little thrill of excitement shot through his belly.
The change of pace and scenery was doing him a world of good, especially since he was considering coming right back to Virginia for college in a couple of years.
But he wouldn't mind a bit of mystery and adventure to spice things up.
"Did something strange happen there, Papaw? At the Hartsock place?"
"Well no, I can't exactly say that. It's just... I got an uneasy twinge about you going there is all."
Mark's father and everyone else in the family often talked about Papaw's twinges, and hunches, and notions, and even dreams. No one ever made much of a fuss about it that Mark could tell.
But they never mentioned thinking those twinges were something it was better to ignore, either.
A Real Hero by Jason A. Adams
What Makes a Hero?
Jonlor Napier stands at the brink of adulthood.
One parent, a leader of the military.
The other, a leader of finance.
Jonlor wants a different path for himself, but fears what they might think.
Will he follow in their footsteps, or will he write his own destiny?
An excerpt from A Real Hero:
“So, have you considered whether you will go to university after you graduate? Or where?”
“Um. I guess I’ll probably enlist in the Defense Academy.” Jonlor’s stomach clenched, as it always did.
Mister Meriweather studied him the way she’d study a questionable manuscript.
“Are you sure, Jonlor? I’d rather hoped you’d consider my old school, the Aeneid College for Creative Minds.”
He had considered the Aeneid. Of course he had. He’d read every word on their net site. Had half the course catalog memorized. He’d even daydreamed about which order he’d take which classes in. But…
But.
He straightened up in his best cadet ten-hut, clenching his fists against himself.
“I don’t want to dishonor my father by not enlisting, Mister Meriweather.”
In the Company of Women by Kari Kilgore
Through the distant past and forward into the future
A hot July night. An American Midwestern town, steeped in traditional values.
A group of seventeen-year-old girls, on the brink of their new lives as women.
Only one resists, longing for another choice. A path to her own future.
Can she break free from all who passed before her?
An excerpt from In the Company of Women:
Facing Down Fate
After years of dreaming of this night, since she was old enough to understand the words spoken in the service the week before, it was all Cathy could do to stop herself from running out the door.
The women would be waiting, of course.
But maybe she could dart through. Brian had a car, a blue late Seventies Chevette in really good shape. They could go right now and never look back.
Except Brian wouldn't.
And even more so, Cathy wouldn't.
She could only hope, and maybe even pray, that she would not be the one after all. That she'd walk out of here the same as she walked in. That she'd get the time she still needed to figure out all the rest.
"Come on, Cathy," Rhonda said, her voice soft and shaky. "Time's up."
